


I'll Crawl Home to Her

by mixtapesandsunsets



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Steve Trevor Lives, diana and etta are best friends now and no one can convince me otherwise, diana prince is not your damn secretary, narrative is not quite linear but doesn't jump around too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:09:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixtapesandsunsets/pseuds/mixtapesandsunsets
Summary: Diana watches as Steve Trevor's plane explodes.She attends the funeral of a pilot who didn't have enough time.He calls her one month later from a military hospital.





	I'll Crawl Home to Her

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably trash because I basically just keysmashed my feelings out. I love them and need them to be happy okay I'm sorry

Diana lays on the pavement, imprisoned by the treads of a tank. Slowly being crushed like a bug under a hand. Far above her, a German plane ascends steeply toward the atmosphere.   
  
_Steve_.  
  
Far above her, a massive starburst of fire explodes across the sky, followed by a boom loud enough to shake the earth.  
  
Diana’s heart shakes too.  
  
She screams and screams, the feeling of rage unlike anything she has ever felt before: all-consuming, feeling like it was pushing out of her very skin. And maybe it was. She threw the treads off of her as if they were as light as air, destroying everything and everyone near her in her righteous fury.  
  
Only a god can kill another god. And kill him she would.  
  
\-------------  
Steve Trevor floats from the sky like an angel with a parachute, and lands a few miles away in the forest.  
\------------  
After, Diana returns to London with Sammy and Charlie, Chief going his own way. Diana is sad, but Sammy grasps her shoulder.  
  
“It is what he does Diana. He does not have a home like the rest of us.”  
  
Diana nods, but what she doesn’t say is that her home exploded at 30,000 feet as she fought the God of War. Absentmindedly, she rubs the face of the watch that sits on her wrist. 9:05.  
  
But as Sam said that day in Veld, they were all fighting their own battles. She needn’t concern others with her battles when their own were just as suffocating.  
  
She stays with Etta for a few days until they find her a shabby little flat in the city and a job. The job is as a secretary, and for Diana it is demeaning work, but she does understand that in Man’s World, it is necessary to have currency. Etta calls it “capitalism” and rolls her eyes when she explains it to her.  
\----------  
Steve wakes up tangled in a tree, groaning in the weak sunlight of early morning. His body feels heavy, and despite his desperate attempts to untangle himself, he cannot move.  
  
Out of all the ways he thought he may die, starving to death in a tree after narrowly escaping the massive explosion he caused to save thousands of others wasn’t one. He was willing to die in the explosion, but not now. Not when he was so close.   
Diana. Diana had been fighting Ares. He felt so guilty he hadn’t believed her before. He saw the way they were hovering in the air, preparing to fight to the death. The words made him shudder. Who else but the god of war could have thrown Diana back hard enough to crack the concrete? No one. Steve wants her to be alright so badly he aches with it. He hopes that after all he did, that she still cares for him. He knows he was stubborn.  
  
He remains lost in his thoughts for a few hours at least. It is hard to tell exactly how much time has passed without his watch and without anyone else around.  
  
When the sun is high in the sky, he hears something. He cranes his stiff neck the best he can and listens. It is footsteps. A few pairs, if he was judging correctly. And they were coming toward him.  
  
As he got closer, he heard their voices. Clearly male, clearly American. With a start, he realized he was still wearing a German uniform.  
  
He knew this could put him in danger. They could leave him to die, they could kill him on the spot, they could take him as a prisoner of war. He thought of Diana, and decided he would have to try.  
  
\---------  
Diana had been a secretary for one day before she quit. Instead, she became what Charlie had come to call a vigilante. She did not fully understand what this meant, but Etta later explained, with a note of awe in her voice, that it was someone who protected others though they weren’t part of law enforcement. Diana nodded, smiling. She liked that.  
  
She often caught the most wanted criminals and made her money through the rewards that were offered for their capture. She didn’t necessarily like this, being in the spotlight, but it would do for now. She was still trying to adjust to this new world, so she stuck to what she knew.  
  
\--------  
  
A week or so after their return, Steve’s funeral was held. Chief returned for it, though he looked pained. There were many impersonal speeches from his commanding officers. She noticed his family did not seem to be there. When she mentioned this to Etta later, she would reply, with the saddest smile, “dear, _we_ were his family.”  
  
Near the end, a song called ‘Amazing Grace’ played. ‘I once was lost, but now am found’. Diana’s hand tensed on the hymnal book she held, because Steve was not found. Steve would never be found.   
  
Gently, Etta pulled the book out of her hands. Without realizing, she had badly bent it, putting indentations from her fingers in the pages and the leather binding. She went to apologize, but Etta, tears in her eyes, just set it down and grasped Diana’s hand in hers. Sammy grabbed her other hand, Charlie grabbed his, and Chief grabbed Charlie’s. They stood there, an unbroken chain, and Diana felt a kind of strength she hadn’t felt since fighting in Veld. The strength that comes from having those you care about backing you up. She smiled even as her throat constricted with the force of her grief.  
  
\-----------  
A month later, Diana and Etta are eating dinner at Etta’s place when the phone rings.   
  
“Hello?” Etta answers cheerily.  
  
Diana watches as her face turns an ashen grey, and runs to catch her as she faints. Shifting Etta to one arm, Diana picks up the phone.  
  
“Who is this?!” She demands fiercely. “You have harmed her! Do not try to reach her again, for if you hurt her you may be sure that you will not live to see the next sunrise.”  
  
There is no reply but a shaky breath and a small shuffle, maybe someone running a hand through their hair.  
  
“Hello?! Tell me who you are now!” Her worry fueled her rage far more than she had expected.  
  
“Diana? You’re alive?” A voice breathed on the other end, hopeful yet full of disbelief.  
  
The voice sounded so much like Steve’s. But Steve was dead. She had seen his plane explode.  
  
“Who. Is. This. I am not playing your mind games. How do you know of me? What do you want with my family?”  
  
Another shaky breath. “Diana. It’s me- it’s Steve. I survived.”  
  
“Impossible! I watched his plane explode. I attended his funeral yesterday. What are you gaining from doing this?”  
  
“Nothing! Diana, please it’s really me. I found a parachute and escaped the plane. I’m really alive.”  
  
She wanted to believe him, wanted it so badly. But she could not risk hoping, nor allowing Etta and the others to hope. “Prove it. Where are you? I will come to you and you can show me whether or not you are Steve Trevor.”  
  
“I’m in Germany. In an American-run military hospital near Dresden.”  
  
“I will be there by morning.”  
  
And with that, she placed the receiver on the wall, ending the connection. She placed Etta softly on the couch, covering her up with the crocheted blanket she kept hanging over the back. She quickly scrawled a note.  
  
_Etta,_  
  
_Have to take a quick trip. Should be back sometime in the next few days._  
  
_Take care,_  
 _Diana_  
  
She went home, grabbed her battle gear, covered up with a long cloak, and took a running leap into the sky, flying toward Germany.  
  
\-----------  
She makes it in just a few hours, the hope she was desperately trying to quell still pushing her faster.  
  
She had told Steve - no. Not Steve. The man who claimed to be Steve - she would make it by morning, but it was barely 2 am. As anxious as she is, she finds a small motel on the outskirts of town and gets a room for the night. She falls asleep to the memory of Steve Trevor’s arms wrapped around her, a memory she’s been consciously trying to forget.  
  
\------  
She wakes up when the sun does, just as she was taught on Themyscira. She prepares for the day, feeling alarmingly like she was preparing for a battle. Not being able to wait any longer, she heads toward the military hospital, trying to act as natural as possible.  
  
Diana reaches the front desk. “Hello,” she said calmly. “I’m looking for a Steve Trevor.”  
  
“Captain Trevor?” Diana nodded, fists clenching by her sides. “Room 43. Go straight down that hallway and take the first left, the doorway to his room will be on the right.”  
  
Diana thanked her, and walked swiftly down the hall.  
\---------  
  
Steve was facing out the window when he heard footsteps in the doorway, he spun around to face them just as something warm wrapped around his wrist. He glanced down. The Lasso of Hestia.  
  
Slowly finishing his turn, he looked up. 

_Diana_.  
  
Her eyes blazed fiercely as she held onto her end of the lasso.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
“Steve Trevor. Diana, it’s me.”  
  
She clenched her fist, shaking her head. “How are you alive? You left us.”  
  
“No Diana, I didn’t leave you. I did what I could for the world just as you did. There was a parachute on the plane, so I grabbed it and jumped out right before the plane exploded. I landed in a forest somewhere and some American soldiers brought me here to heal. I had a broken leg that isn’t all the way healed and some pretty serious burns on my torso. But I am alive.”  
  
The lasso compels you to tell the truth, so finally, Diana believes. Diana lets out a sob, unwrapping the lasso and rushing into Steve’s open arms. “Steve, you were dead. I went to your funeral Steve, it was awful.”  
  
“I know. I’m so, so sorry I put you through that. But I’m here now. And I’ll be here as long as you’ll have me.”  
  
Diana did not respond, just gripped him tighter.  
  
\----  
The next afternoon, Diana and Steve returned to London after travelling through the previous day and night from Germany. They did not wish to fly.  
  
Diana called all of her-their-friends to come over, saying it was urgent. Chief had left again, so he would need to be found soon. Sammy, Charlie, and Etta all arrive around the same time, pushing through the door. They had never heard Diana sound as nervous as she had. They found her sitting at the kitchen table hands clasped.   
  
“What is it?” Etta shrilled, hand on Diana’s shoulder. “Where did you go? What has happened?”  
  
So she explained how she had received a phone call that had dropped Etta into a dead faint. (“I thought that was a dream!” Etta had exclaimed.  
  
The others just looked at her warily. “Come out,” Diana called in the direction of her bedroom.  
  
Out walked Steve Trevor in jeans and a button up, and all hell broke loose. Etta sobbing, Sammy nearly falling out of his chair, and Charlie spitting out every swear word in the books. They all rushed him at once, Steve squeezing them tightly, grinning like a maniac.   
  
“Well, Lassie, what are you waitin’ for? Get in here!” Charlie said to Diana.  
She was welcomed into the fray, and she felt at peace.  
  
\-----  
Later, Diana and Steve lay in her bed side-by-side, not touching, just gazing.   
  
He smiled and brushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, just as he had that night in Veld.  
  
“Steve?” Diana asked, grabbing his hand.  
  
“Yes?” He replied softly, brushing the smooth skin of her hand with his thumb.  
  
“I love you too.”  
  
And when he grinned and his lips met hers, she knew she had returned home.


End file.
